A father suckled by his daughter. Euphrasia, the Grecian daughter, so preserved the life of Evander, her aged father.

2

Xantippe so preserved the life of her father Cimonos in prison. The guard, marvelling the old man held out so long, set a watch and discovered the fact. Byron alludes to these stories in his Childe Harold.

3

There is a dungeon, in whose dim, drear light

What do I gaze on?

An old man, and a female young and fair,

Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein

The blood is nectar .

Here youth offers to old age the food,

The milk of his own gift:it is her sire

To whom she renders back the debt of blood .

Drink, drink and live, old man ! heavens realm

holds no such tide.

Byron: Childe Harold, iv. st. 148, 150.

Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of lifei.e. Melchisedec (Heb. vii. 3). He was not the son of a priest, either on his fathers or mothers side; his pedigree could not be traced in the priestly line, like that of the ordinary high priests, which can be traced to Aaron; nor did he serve in courses like the Levites, who begin and end their official duties at stated times.

4

Jesus was a priest after the order of Melchisedec. Neither His reputed father, Joseph, nor His mother, Mary, was of the priestly line. As priest, therefore, He was without father, without mother, without genealogy. And, like Melchisedec, He is a priest for ever.